Face Off Goes To The Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room

Hawaiian gods are very popular right now -- even ones that aren't voiced by The Rock.

Getting The New Challenge

As you may remember, we're down to individual challenges, with Cig, George, Emily, Tyler, and Logan still alive. Logan's the only one without his original partner, because Cig/George and Emily/Tyler turned out to be great teams that scooped up a lot of the available wins.

The challenge is presented inside the lab, where the set dressers have created a little beach with tiki statues. McKenzie tries to connect them to the concept of "gods" as seen in Thor, but it's a stretch. There aren't that many movies with Polynesian settings, and there weren't a lot of tikis in Moana or Lilo & Stitch.

Design Phase

George gets Kanaloa, God of the Ocean, the oldest one in the pantheon. So George wants to do some wrinkles and to tie it into the sea somehow. This leads directly to sea turtles, on the grounds that they are native to Hawaii and kind of look like weird old men already.

Emily gets Pele, God of Fire and Volcanoes. So she's going to do some kind of lava makeup. Seems pretty straightforward.

Tyler is doing Kane, God of Earth and Stone. Emily immediately guesses that he's going to do wood and stone makeup again, because he's done it a lot. And she's right. She cautions him against doing the same thing too much, but his sketches look okay to her.

Logan has Lono, God of Agriculture, and he's completely lost. Everyone but Logan still has a pal to can turn to if they feel lost in a challenge, which has to be tough for Logan. He complains about having to fit concepts like irrigation into makeup, which seems like it's probably the wrong way to go. He's also doing a big pineapple head for his cowl, even though he knows it's hokey.

Cig has Ku, God of War, who's the only Hawaiian god associated with human sacrifice. He's going for an aggressive and scary look, and he plans to incorporate a lot of scarification and tattoos, which he claims is the Hawaiian aesthetic. I will have to ask one of my editors about that, because I was under the impression that Hawaii was mostly about relaxing and taking pictures of your dog. ["Tribal tattoos are definitely traditional; scarification is more Maori, I think, but he's in the right neighbourhood relatively speaking. Also my dog says hello." - Tara.]

Day 1 Begins

George is doing his old-man turtle in silicone, which is something we've seen him do well before. So he's going to have a lot of little thin pieces to glue all over, and he's concentrating on doing everything very precisely.

This does not stop him from throwing out topics of discussion for everyone. When he asks Logan what he'd be a god of, the answer is "agriculture," which is extremely boring. George picks either farts or white-trash beer. Emily chooses possums so quickly that it's clear that she's already thought about this topic. And chose to be Possum Goddess, I guess. It's some good workroom banter.

Mentor Session

With only five people left, we finally have enough space to let Michael Westmore's segment breathe a little. He does not like Logan's pineapple head at all, and neither does Logan. Mr. Westmore tells Cig to make his face meaner and more powerful, which seems like a good suggestion in general for people making gods. "More powerful," anyway. I guess gods don't really have to be mean.

Emily, Tyler, and George all kind of get the same advice. Tyler needs to add a lot of color to his wood-grain face to take it away from being human; George needs to make his sculpting deeper; and Emily needs to make sure her painting looks like lava. So that advice was all basically "do a good job."

Really, the main reason I promoted this segment from "skip" to "watch" is because I like that Mr. Westmore says "Aloha" when he leaves. Good job staying on theme, sir. ["I think you mean 'Mahalo.'" - Tara.]

Back To Work (And Day 2)

George wonders if he's crazy for not doing a cowl, which everyone else is, but he decides to concentrate on doing one small piece really well. He's also a little worried because he's the only person left who wasn't in the finals of his season. But he figures that because everyone else is doing more appliances, he'll be able just to sit back and relax on Application Day. Keep that in mind for later.

Logan also decides not to do a cowl, because it's hard for him to deny how goofy the pineapple head looks. George's decision not to doi one is all the excuse he needs. But George isn't doing one because it's part of his plan; Logan is just bailing on it. His new plan is to make the face amazing (which kind of seems like it should have been the plan from the start), then add flowers and vines.

On Day 2, Emily starts sculpting her face. She wants to get it done in the morning so that she can spend the afternoon painting the lava rocks that make up the cowl. Unfortunately, once she starts painting the cowl, she discovers that she hates it. It looks like a "cheesy fifth-grade art project," and it's too late to start over. So I guess she wouldn't have liked my plan of doing an actual baking-soda volcano head, huh? I guess that's more of a science project.

Cig is still sculpting his cowl, using the time-honored technique of trimming a popsicle stick and doing regular indentations. It looks really cool.

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Logan worries that now that his cowl is out, he's not doing enough, so he decides to do some tattoos. Conveniently enough, he has a Maori tattoo he got in Tahiti, so he copies it and adds some ornamentation. You know, just to make absolutely sure it's not accurate. It does look cool, so he now has a tattoo stencil. This is contrasted with Cig, who's already painting his face. He's so far ahead that he can take the time to do a facial tattoo that looks like it's under the skin.

Tyler is using plastic wrap to look like little rivulets of water coming off his cowl, which seems like a more literal interpretation of "The God of Irrigation" than the judges are necessarily expecting.

Application Day

Everyone seems pretty far ahead, and there are no immediate fitting problems. Cig's looks great even while he's applying it.

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That's what you get when you have time to paint appliances before they're glued to someone.

Remember when George was just going to sit back and watch everyone panic on Application Day? He has somehow ended up with nine separate silicone pieces that have to be glued on in very precise ways to cover his model's entire head, so he doesn't start painting until well after everyone else. He might not have a cowl, but he has at least as much work as anyone.

Going to the stage, only Cig is really confident. Emily outright hates her look, and George is worried that he just did "a sad old turtle guy" instead of a god.

Reveal Stage

There's a guest judge. And it's Lois Burwell! She's really more of a semi-regular, since she fills in for Ve when she's on a project. Everyone's happy to see her. Especially George, who's practically giddy about it.

I liked Logan's piece when it was half-finished, but he's gone too far.

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The leaves don't look like they belong there. It's almost as if he just stuck them on to cover the lack of a cowl. Also, that's a cartoony nose.

I like Cig's a lot. It's the only one that actually has a Tiki feel.

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Look at that dude! That's a god of war who is about to kill someone. Cig is delighted to see his model waving a knife around on stage, and this seems like a good spot to mention that these are different models from usual. This group was chosen because they can do an authentic Polynesian dance, which also means that there's more authenticity than usual. What I'm saying is that this model seems like he brought his own knife to the shoot. Logan's guy had a ukulele, which apparently used to be played by someone other than cute YouTube girls.

Emily's model does some poi spinning, which is on-theme for a fire goddess.

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The makeup isn't great. I picture lava as being brighter. I guess this is lava that's cooled down and become dark and ugly and bad?

George has indeed made a sad old turtle man.

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Luckily for him, "turtle man" is unusual enough that it pushes this into the supernatural. He does some tai chi, which is exactly the correct thing for an old man character with spiritual elements to do.

Tyler did competent work that doesn't really go together for me.

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The face is an okay job of doing wood, and the cowl is an okay job of doing wood. I like that he used couch cushion foam there. Tyler claims that it looks clean and is interesting to look at. I don't disagree, but I was hoping for more.

Dancing

Remember how the finales always used to have some big stunt show with trampolines and water or something? This is sort of like that, in that nobody's lit well enough to see the makeup. We mostly just see the dancing. It's cool, but not relevant. It's like a very short haka, I think.

Judging

George gets out in front of what he thinks is the problem with his look and explains that it's the oldest god in the mythology. Glenn calls it "incredibly successful," and everyone likes it very much. Lois likes how sad the turtle man seems, and she's very happy to see how much George has improved since the last time she saw him.

Tyler's work is not liked by anybody. Ve compares the cowl to having a miniature waterpark on the model's head. Glenn kind of likes the texture on the rocks, but Lois thinks there's too much of everything.

Emily's look did not strike the judges as being elegant. They think it's generally sloppy, and they don't even like the original concept of a reverse mohawk, which makes the model short and wide instead of tall and cool. Glenn hates the black chunks of foam. And the whole time, Emily can just glumly agree with everything because she also hates the look.

Everyone loves everything about Cig's look. The silhouette is cool, and there's a ton of little details. Lois tells him, "I can see that you've been working jolly hard since we last met."

The judges like Logan's tattoos, but not much else. Lois thinks it's too much of everything. He explains that the dryness of the forehead is supposed to represent a dry climate, but I don't see why the god of agriculture needs to have a desert in there. Neville says, "Didn't work, and I don't think it CAN work." Ouch.

In the private judging, Glenn says that this was Tyler's weakest contribution to the show in either of his seasons. Oof. Lois thinks Logan should have started with his cool tattoos and worked from there. That would have been a great idea, except that the tattoos were a last-second throw-in.

The winner is Cig, surprising no one. Everyone's happy for him. George and Tyler are safe, which means the elimination is between Emily and Logan. I think Emily did the worst job this week, but she's done better than Logan throughout the season.

Neither bottom look is without some good points. Emily gets called out for some nice stenciling, while Logan's tattoos are also good.

Logan is eliminated, and he agrees with it.

Verdict

I feel bad for Logan, but I'd be sorrier to see Emily go. I like this top four a lot. And this episode made the Tiki Room song play in my head even more than usual, so that's a plus.